So I bought this 1960s mammoth and its extremely exciting. I have been playing with it and I understand how it works as far as basic operation and readings but I'm getting strange measurements that render extremely dark pictures with my *ist DL. I also noticed that it gets darker if I zoom from say 24mm to 50mm which is to be expected. How do I get the best readings from the meter using incident and reflected techniques. Do you point it only at the subject, light source, etc.?

Because that excellent meter is so old it was made for mercury batteries which is a real no-no these days and many people put the wrong type in them nowadays. Maybe this is your problem? If so see these old threads:

Thanks guys, I have ordered some Wein replacement cells that are compatible with the mercury 625s in there. I wasnt sure whether it was just the meter being unable to adjust for digital cameras or not but I'm pretty sure its the battery to blame.